Your data center is complex — your IT support doesn’t have to be

Multicloud environments. Legacy systems that need to last. A growing array of IoT devices. An ever-expanding list of software and hardware suppliers. Service-level agreements that demand 24/7 uptime. Customers and clients with increasing expectations. The IT environment in today’s enterprise data center is characterized by complexity. If your IT support team spends all its time fighting fires, how many resources are left to help your business innovate and grow?

The cost of stretched IT teams

Continuous change is the new norm for today’s enterprise. Internal tech support has had to evolve to match this pace of change. However, this development hasn’t come without its risks. These include:

More outages and security failures. As the IT environment grows more complex, businesses will need more internal resources. However, with headcount reductions, businesses have fewer staff to manage asset inventories, install timely software patches or firmware updates and manage issues across tech support vendors. Without the staff to implement maintenance, your systems and customers are left vulnerable.

Reactive rather than proactive support. The exponentially growing number of original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) and vendors in the IT environment creates a complex ecosystem that needs to be managed. With the increasing strain on internal IT resources, there’s less time and fewer staff left to focus on core business innovations and development.

Increased budget needed for nonstrategic IT spending. Hardware and software support is increasingly viewed as a nonstrategic investment. Allocating IT budgets to strategic initiatives creates pressure to re-evaluate technology refresh and support costs versus risk.

A new model for IT support

Ignoring the evolution of your tech environment and the support it requires comes at a price. As your IT environment evolves, so must the support structure it requires. Your data center’s servers, storage, networking, security devices and software need an integrated support services model. Fully aligned with the needs of today’s IT infrastructure, IBM Technology Support Services helps enterprise clients create a smarter support strategy.

IBM establishes a single point of accountability for multivendor hardware and software support. That support works across a heterogeneous IT environment, offering consistent enterprise-wide support and simplified business processes at a lower cost. Consolidating IT support vendors can help you lower your current support management costs. Enterprise support teams also see significant time savings, because their internal resources no longer need to be spent managing multiple vendors. Their focus can then remain on strategic projects. That time and money you save on support could be spent on innovation and growth.

Simplified data center support

How many dozens of vendors and support providers do you use in your data centers? What resources are you expending on their upkeep? How are you currently managing this mix, and could it be managed better? IBM can show you what simplified support looks like.

IBM enhances the capabilities it provides by using leading support management technology, such as IBM Watson, augmented reality, blockchain and Client Insights Portal. It also utilizes proprietary data bases of technical information, available to address maintenance and support concerns such as aggregated event analysis, reporting and proactive monitoring.

Life cycle maintenance extends the life of your mature products, providing an operating expense alternative to a complete system refresh and capital expense outlay.

With technical skills grounded in decades of experience with Linux and other open source technologies, IBM can simplify support for your open source ecosystem. IBM’s support goes far beyond break/fix, helping clients solve problems whether they originate in one product or are the result of complex interactions between multiple open source packages.

David Subia has been with IBM for over 20 years. He has experience in both IBM hardware and software and multivendor IT support, including product management, offering, brand relationship and as a business line executive. David's primary responsibility is to drive growth for IBM Technology Support Services - Multivendor Support. His initiatives include developing capabilities... Read more